Bremmer: America needs to “make the refugee crisis our problem”

posted at 8:01 am on January 25, 2016 by Jazz Shaw

In case you missed it over the weekend, we already discussed the global summit in Davos, Switzerland and the sense of panic setting in among European Union (EU) leaders regarding the Syrian refugee crisis. Not everyone was just complaining and wringing their hands, though. Foreign policy wonk and founder of Eurasia Group, Ian Bremmer, was ready to put forward some solutions. Before tossing them out with the bathwater entirely, I will give credit to Bremmer for at least attempting to identify the root of the problem. Rather than trying to figure out what to do with millions of out of control immigrants flooding countries around the world, perhaps you should see if there’s a way to stop them from leaving home in the first place. (Yahoo News)

“In America, we had a war on drugs that did not accomplish a lot, because Americans were dealing with everything but the actual problem,” Bremmer told Mic. “Similarly, right now, you have across the Middle East tens of millions of young, disenfranchised Islamic men who have a demand for a sense of mission. There aren’t a lot of options for them. Al-Qaida, ISIS and Boko Haram have proved to be by far the most compelling. Unless that is changed, you cannot resolve the refugee problem.”

For this reason, Bremmer says there’s one key to permanently solving the refugee crisis, and it rests with Arab governments.

“The regimes they are living in are unsustainable, and they must reform to provide these young men and women with careers and livelihood,” Bremmer told Mic.

In the most general sense, Bremmer is obviously correct. If you’ve got a population that’s suffering from skyrocketing cases of lead poisoning, rather than only treating the people with the disease, you might want to figure out where the lead is coming from and shut it down. But in the case of that part of the world his solution is woefully short on specifics. What sort of “pressure” can the rest of the world apply on Arab governments to change the situation? Telling Islamic governments that they need to curb the appeal of the call to Jihad sounds rather unlikely to say the least. The other aspect of the question is what to do about nations which are collapsing into failed, terrorist states.

On that second score, Bremmer criticizes those who pine for the days when “brutal dictators like Saddam Hussein and Moammar Gadhafi were still in power.” In a perfect world, having some sort of despotic strongman oppressing his own people is hardly an ideal solution, but for some of the smaller, volatile nations in less developed regions of the world, it’s hard to argue that allowing them to melt down the way Syria has is preferable to a dictator.

So what’s the role of the United States in this? Bremmer goes a bit off the beam here and he’s joined by David Miliband, president and CEO of the International Rescue Committee.

Miliband and Bremmer also both pressed America to do more to resolve the problem.

“The political climate [around refugees in the United States] is noxious,” Miliband told Mic. “[But the existing system of] biometric testing of refugees means you cannot become a refugee resettled into the U.S. unless you can prove you are who you say you are.”

Bremmer had a similar message. “The Americans have been most effective at not making this our problem, and you’re going to see more of that going forward from European governments,” Bremmer told Mic.

“We need to make it our problem.”

With all due respect to Messrs. Miliband and Bremmer, I think you could find a number of people hanging around in San Bernardino or Philadelphia who think that it’s already our problem in a very big way. When you begin by arguing against things like biometric testing of “refugees” you are working from an assumption that you’re dealing with people yearning to be free who want to immerse themselves in the great melting pot. The situations that the EU nations are dealing with today would seem to argue against that premise. There’s a vast difference between bringing in new citizens who want to integrate into your culture and importing hordes of people who want to bring their culture with them.

Germany, for example, is wrestling with just that question today. In an excellent piece for Yahoo, Mathilde Richter studies the question of trying to integrate the Syrian arrivals into rural, farming communities rather than the big cities. Some German leaders seem to see this as a more promising path, but they’ve run into trouble there as well.

“The rural regions are a laboratory of integration,” said Karl-Friedrich Thoene from the infrastructure and agriculture ministry of the eastern state of Thuringia.

Unlike in densely populated big cities, “there can be no parallel societies in rural areas,” he said. “The village community is the ideal chance for integration.”

The lower cost of living, cheaper rents and tight-knit communities in the countryside are main “factors of success” for integrating the newcomers, said Gudrun Kirchhoff, an expert on refugee issues at the German Institute of Urban Affairs.

That all sounds great in theory, as I said above, but it relies entirely on the immigrants actually being interested in taking on the culture of their new homes. As the article goes on to point out, that’s frequently not the case, leading to all manner of friction. And I would argue that the potential negative impact of a swarm of squatters from a foreign culture is actually greater in a remote village of only four or five thousand people. At least in the major cities you have a more significant military and law enforcement presence on call when trouble erupts. Not so in a farm town where a few local constables on foot patrol may be the only available help for fifty miles or more.

The challenges presented by the flood of immigrants from these war torn regions do cry out for solutions. But while I credit Bremmer and others for at least talking about the problem, their fingers seem to be pointing in the wrong directions. The only way to shut down this flood is to cut it off at the source and that will require ending the wars taking place in their homeland and imposing some sense of order, by force if necessary.

If you’ve got a population that’s suffering from skyrocketing cases of lead poisoning, rather than only treating the people with the disease, you might want to figure out where the lead is coming from and shut it down.

If you’ve got a population that’s suffering from skyrocketing cases of lead poisoning, rather than only treating the people with the disease, you might want to figure out where the lead is coming from and shut it down.

Leave Flint out of this please.

Difficultas_Est_Imperium on January 25, 2016 at 8:11 AM

Lead poisoning is the least of the muslim world’s problems when they have a hate filled “religion” that demands mass murder and a prophet that set them an example of rape, pedophilia and incest.

Again with the Arabs must solve their own problems canard. They’re not going to do that. They’re just like American leftists- so long as they remain comfortably insulated and above the fray, whatever happens beneath them is not such a great concern.

That all sounds great in theory, as I said above, but it relies entirely on the immigrants actually being interested in taking on the culture of their new homes. As the article goes on to point out, that’s frequentlyalmost always not the case, leading to all manner of friction.

Take a look at the picture of that guy. A globalist, neocon egghead. A guy like him couldn’t even protect his own girlfriend from a nipping Chihuahua. The problem with the west is that its enemies elites are warlords, while its own elites are beta males, who just a few years ago, and he looks to be about my age, got shoved into lockers in high school.

Bremmer criticizes those who pine for the days when “brutal dictators like Saddam Hussein and Moammar Gadhafi were still in power.” In a perfect world, having some sort of despotic strongman oppressing his own people is hardly an ideal solution…

Twenty-twenty hindsight, despotic strongmen seem like the perfect leaders in countries where a majority of its citizenry belong to a barbaric 7th century death cult, a religion of pieces. Just keep them away from nuclear weapons.

Translation: we’ve pissed off our next-door neighbors by bringing them into the city, let’s shove the problem off where no one cares.

itsspideyman on January 25, 2016 at 8:29 AM

The thing is the muslims already live in rural areas. I had a friend that visited France in the early 2000’s and he said he was able to speak mainly Arabic after he left Paris. Since then I have been waiting for the civil war to start.

There are problems for which there is no “solution,” but there are remedies. After spending a large part of my working life involved in famine relief in Africa I can tell you that I do not know of a single case of famine whose cause was agricultural. Invariably, the cause is political. And though the developed world can provide food, seeds, advice, and agricultural implements, what they never provide is the one thing these countries need: stable government and the rule of law.

If you want to end the refugee crisis then rather than wait for them to come here, you have to be willing to go there – on a permanent basis. And whether that means that the First World has take the underdeveloped countries under their wing via a system like the old League of Nation Mandatory Territories, or just flat out colonization that is what it will take to actually bring an end to the problem and not just slap a Bandaid on it.

The problem is Saudi Arabia and the other wealthy families in the ME. They keep the oil money and make sure their subjects stay impovrished, illiterate, and perpetually agitated. While they live a filthy rich lifestyle thanks to Western money, they trick their subjects into hating the west instead of hating them. And they have bought off enough Western leaders to keep the scam going.

Any student of history knows that Muslims were only forced to resort to violence after American Imperialism pushed their societies into a corner. Now that we’ve completely destroyed their culture and functioning economies, you people have the audacity to deny them their natural right to live in America!?

Did you racists ever consider that if you’d just meet their modest and understandable requests the violence could completely end? Would it really hurt your women to occasionally adorn some modest clothing? You bible-thumpers already claim that you like to pray, would state-encouraged prayers really be so different?

Take a look at the picture of that guy. A globalist, neocon egghead. A guy like him couldn’t even protect his own girlfriend from a nipping Chihuahua. The problem with the west is that its enemies elites are warlords, while its own elites are beta males, who just a few years ago, and he looks to be about my age, got shoved into lockers in high school.

That disparity is the death of us.

HugoDrax on January 25, 2016 at 8:28 AM

And the National Review can’t understand the attraction of Trump. Trump is the guy willing to be politically incorrect enough to shove these beta males back in their lockers.

Just like the Ruling Classers that lecture us from behind their gates and armed guards…..

THIS FOR EXAMPLE:

WASHINGTON — President Obama said in an interview released Monday that politics in America had become “meaner” than when he took office, but expressed hope that Republicans would eventually turn away from the “expression of frustration” and anger that Donald J. Trump and Senator Ted Cruz were offering to voters.

Speaking to Politico’s Glenn Thrush for the site’s “Off Message” podcast, Mr. Obama said the Republican candidates for president were more outside the mainstream than Senator John McCain was during the 2008 campaign.

“John McCain was a conservative, but he was well within, you know, the mainstream of not just the Republican Party but within our political dialogue,” Mr. Obama told Politico. The president said voters would have to judge “the degree to which the Republican rhetoric and Republican vision has moved, not just to the right, but has moved to a place that is unrecognizable.”

Males from 12-65 must stay to address the problems in their homeland. The ones that have made it out should be returned immediately.

Others can be repatriated to Russia or China where the gvt has the will to enforce lawful behavior on the part of the populace, if not of the government.

There is no advantage in letting a bunch of misogynistic, homophobic pedophiles, slavers, terrorists, and sexual predators into free societies that will turn a blind eye to their anti-social behaviors under the false god of multiculturalism.

Take a look at the picture of that guy. A globalist, neocon egghead. A guy like him couldn’t even protect his own girlfriend from a nipping Chihuahua. The problem with the west is that its enemies elites are warlords, while its own elites are beta males, who just a few years ago, and he looks to be about my age, got shoved into lockers in high school.

That disparity is the death of us.

HugoDrax on January 25, 2016 at 8:28 AM

And the National Review can’t understand the attraction of Trump. Trump is the guy willing to be politically incorrect enough to shove these beta males back in their lockers.

BuckeyeSam on January 25, 2016 at 8:50 AM

And it is an appeal that can cross racial and economic boundaries, and while some of the military leaders are anti-Trump, I bet a lot of servicemen want a leader that will let them get the job done instead of one who will ponder anxiously for a month before making the decision to take out bin Laden.

Trump, Cruz or Rubio needs to point out in the next debate that the European “refugees” mostly aren’t refugees. They are an invading army and they need to be sent back to their home countries to fight it out there, not in Europe or the US.

Except the culture of the religion is being ignored again and for some reason will not be addressed by these “thinkers”. Everyone is to submit and serve Muslims. They don’t work unless they have to do so. The non-Muslim is to work FOR them. Farm? Please. The farmers will have to pay Muslims and do their work AND feed them. No one will listen when the migrants clearly tell them they want “salaries”. This is do no work jobs with pay and benefits for working in a snack-bar commensurate to support six kids or occasionally sweeping out a government office or better yet hanging out all day smoking and drinking coffee. As superior beings due to their religion this is viewed as their right and they have no intention of lowering themselves to blend in with the working stiffs of a inferior culture meant to serve them. Why does anyone think they are so found of slavery in all of its various guises? Sex, marital, child, servant are just dandy as is tax-payer slavery to pay them for existing.

Any student of history knows that Muslims were only forced to resort to violence after American Imperialism pushed their societies into a corner. Now that we’ve completely destroyed their culture and functioning economies, you people have the audacity to deny them their natural right to live in America!?

Did you racists ever consider that if you’d just meet their modest and understandable requests the violence could completely end? Would it really hurt your women to occasionally adorn some modest clothing? You bible-thumpers already claim that you like to pray, would state-encouraged prayers really be so different?

Frank Lib on January 25, 2016 at 8:45 AM

Well, I tried to comment earlier, but Bull Gated did me in!

The Arabs have had a violent culture for 2500 years with their muslim followers for 1500 years. From the Arab pirates int he med at the founding of Rome to the “shores of Tripoli where the Americans had to stop the muslim predations of stealing our ships and cargoes and enslaving and raping the female passengers, this is the muslim culture. That is not just the arabs. Have you ever heard of the “boogie men, the muslim Malay pirates? My god, you overeducated idiot! You are obviously well paid by the Saudis. Muslims Never should be allowed to live in the Western hemispher. You puke would bring vipers into our nests. And hey! All you “good muslims” out there, what are you doing to change this? I know, raping your neighbors wife!

The most beneficial act for the refugees would be to make their homes safe for them again. However, it’s a lot easier for donation-sucks and grant-whores like the Eurasia Group and International Rescue Committee to raise funds in America when the can tap in to the generosity of the average American and the sloppy largess of a bloated Government.

Rather than trying to figure out what to do with millions of out of control immigrants flooding countries around the world, perhaps you should see if there’s a way to stop them from leaving home in the first place.

I can’t stand writers who can’t see the real issue here. It’s not about relocating people. It’s about a carefully crafted plan by Muslim leaders to pay Syrian/Arab/Muslim men with phony ID’s to move to Europe to take over the continent. The women and children are just stage props. They are doing peacefully (?) what they couldn’t do militarily 800 years ago.

My gosh, Jazz. Why do you even give this article the time of day? It’s nothing but a false narrative.

Any student of history knows that Muslims were only forced to resort to violence after American Imperialism pushed their societies into a corner. Now that we’ve completely destroyed their culture and functioning economies, you people have the audacity to deny them their natural right to live in America!?

Did you racists ever consider that if you’d just meet their modest and understandable requests the violence could completely end? Would it really hurt your women to occasionally adorn some modest clothing? You bible-thumpers already claim that you like to pray, would state-encouraged prayers really be so different?

Frank Lib on January 25, 2016 at 8:45 AM

You really need the sarcasm tag on your posts. They’re so good most people here can’t see it as such.

Actually, the solution to the problem is a little bit more of what we’ve been doing recently. Ironically, Dogeater, acting in his best anti-American inclinations, has stumbled on the solution: Abandon the Middle East to its fate and let the Muslims kill each other off via war and starvation.

Of course the Donald has the key missing part: shut down our borders to Muslims.

If you want a prime example of what is driving the Trump phenomenon you have it here. We have “foreign policy wonks” who think the solution to Jihad (and other problems found in the Islamic world) is a job fair, democracy, and bringing lots of them to the western world. It needs an “international” solution, and run by internationalists.

These people are not elected by anyone from that locality. They care nothing for the locals they are going to inflict their social engineering projects upon. All this is done in the name of, “humanity,” and “doing good”! If you resist this idiotic nonsense you get named a “racist”, “xenophobe”, and as someone standing in the way of “international progress”.

The Islamic world has a hard time getting along with any group of people who do not subscribe to it. All infidels get treated like crap within the Islamic world, and it constantly is at war with infidels on its edges. How else can you explain why we have jihadist groups fighting most of the planet that is not Islamic? How can you explain that infidel governments never get much help from Islamic communities (within those countries) combating jihadism?

Simply put: if you bring large numbers of Muslims into your country you will get an increase in Jihadist activities. It does not matter what kind of vetting you do. This is made even worse when the “vetting” involves not asking the person their views about Islam. Like should women be equal to men under the law? Our PC government cannot even bring itself to do that and the internationalist elite demand we cannot.

If this country is to survive we must overthrow the cronies and sellouts that bow to Davos style internationalism at the expense of American nationhood. These lunatics have already destroyed the EU and European peace for generations to come. They will do the same to the American Republic. If that happens the constitution will be meaningless paper, and we no longer are under any obligation to be bound to it, or expect to be protected by it.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Nowhere does it say we must establish a more perfect world, or union of the nations, or submit our safety and well being to a bunch of princes and oligarchs from Davos.

Any student of history knows that Muslims were only forced to resort to violence after American Imperialism pushed their societies into a corner. Now that we’ve completely destroyed their culture and functioning economies, you people have the audacity to deny them their natural right to live in America!?

Did you racists ever consider that if you’d just meet their modest and understandable requests the violence could completely end? Would it really hurt your women to occasionally adorn some modest clothing? You bible-thumpers already claim that you like to pray, would state-encouraged prayers really be so different?

Frank Lib on January 25, 2016 at 8:45 AM

You really need the sarcasm tag on your posts. They’re so good most people here can’t see it as such.

Deckard BR on January 25, 2016 at 9:54 AM

Most oldtimers here know FrankLib is speaking in satire. But he is awesome at it :)

Perhaps we should go spend 99 kersquillion dollars on public programs and aid in the Middle East.
Then it will become **magically** democratic and peaceful, and all of the Islamic countries will thank us for centuries and give us 10% off on every barrel of oil we buy, and let Christians build churches in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere.

…After all, it’s a tried and true method that’s worked SO well for the United States around the world.

All you media dummies (who to yourself consider to be elite geniuses), who can’t understand the allure of a Donald Trump, read this thread – every entry if you can keep your head from exploding! It is so simple. We all HATE you and what you have done to the free world and this country. Your lies have pissed us off for ages. Your PC and SJ are nothing more than Orwellian control mechanisms. You had better hope (we know you don’t pray) that the Donald is elected. That way, you may survive the coming correction. You better learn a trade because you won’t survive as a journolist. And, we won’t have any more handouts except to widows and orphans. I would suggest that because you love the muslims so much, you should probably emigrate to their lands so at least you will be fed as a slave.

Yet another Communist/NWO Eurodouchebag telling us how to run things, and how things are going to be. Ah well…that’s probably true. We sure aren’t fighting against it. And his summation of the free market may be correct. What worries me is that, yes, he may be right about that and in itself is bad enough, but also because of what always goes along with sucky economies-tyranny. And people like Bremmer want a chair when the music stops playing.

“State capitalism,” says Bremmer, “is a system in which the state dominates markets, primarily for political gain.” This is not old-fashioned socialism of using the means of production to redistribute work and wealth: instead, the companies in this system are operating in the market place. Profit is an objective, but management in these ventures answers first to political masters, not shareholders.

The rise of state capitalism does not mean a return to communism or to some economic version of the cold war. But what it does mean, says Bremmer, is that when a multinational goes up directly against a state, the state will win.

———-

Get lost.

Muslims need to make it their problem.

We neither want or need any here.

darwin on January 25, 2016 at 8:11 AM

I agree in a sense, but it was we (the collective “we” of the U.S. and Europe) that stuck our noses into the Middle East, especially Syria as of late, and caused the conditions for these potential radical fighters to emigrate abroad unbridled.

Also, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States and Israel haven’t taken in any of these refugees. Lebanon has been inundated with them. Wonder what effect that’s having on them? Also, why is that any more than a few hundred are ending up in European countries? Wouldn’t they be more at home/welcomed in a Muslim country?

Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems that as soon as the Russians really started bombing ISIS, this Syrian refugee thing has accelerated?

The whole thing is rather odd.

I know the whole situation is because of this Arab Spring thing going on, but there’s not a whole lot of it that makes sense to me on the surface. There’s much going on behind the scenes.